


Say something

by alexanger



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Cheating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 08:43:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7526068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexanger/pseuds/alexanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliza finds out about Maria.</p>
<p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dYlvdLdK9w">for best results open this in a new tab</a>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say something

“Eliza?”

Alexander pauses in the doorway. He looks at their bedroom, painfully neat; Eliza has a habit of keeping things clean, making sure everything is in its place, and most days the order is soothing to his frayed nerves. Today it makes his skin crawl.

“Eliza, I came straight home after work -”

He isn’t sure why he pauses; she makes no response. She’s sitting at the desk in the corner of the room, the tiny writing desk he’s used far too many times in the middle of the night. Her laptop is half-open in front of her, like she was working but folded the screen partway down to put it on pause.

Alex wonders if his blog is open on that screen.

“I know I should have - I should have done a lot of things differently.”

She doesn’t even turn to look at him. He takes in her profile, the high arc of her cheekbones, the strong set of her jaw. Her eyes are half-lidded. There’s the barest hint of a smudge along the curve of her nostril, almost like mascara that’s run, but there are no signs of tears on her face and her eyes aren’t red. He thinks he must be mistaken; that smudge isn’t like her, but he looks closer, stepping forward into the room, and notices another smudge near the corner of her lips.

“I should have told you first, I know - I didn’t want you to find out like this -”

Her raven hair is drawn back from her face in a low ponytail. At any other time he would love seeing her like this, her face clear of her hair so he can take it all in. Her neck is a long, graceful line; he traces that line with his eyes, shoving away the thoughts of the times he’s traced it with his lips, the times he traced another neck with his lips.

“I’m sorry, Eliza. There’s nothing really to say except that. I’m so sorry, I fucked up. I fucked up really, really bad.”

There’s no sign that she’s even heard him. There’s a strange skip in reality there; Alexander wonders if he’s been speaking at all or if he’s just been imagining it. He felt the swell of his lungs as he took air in and he felt the hum of his throat when he spoke, but it’s possible he imagined it. He’s had far too much caffeine; he was up all night writing his confession, and he left for work before she woke up, guiltily stealing away as the sun rose, not ready to see her face.

“I swear, I knew I needed to tell you. I was going to as soon as it made sense, but there never seemed to be time - I didn’t want to tell you while you were pregnant, and then John was born and I knew I couldn’t tell you then, not with a new baby to worry about.”

Alexander steps closer and notices how straight her back is and how steady she holds her shoulders. Eliza breathes slowly, calmly, her hands flat on the desk in front of her. Her fingertips touch the laptop, just barely, and there’s a bundle of papers to her left. Alexander’s heart races as he notices what those papers are.

“Please, Eliza, talk to me. It was fucked up, I have no excuse - look, I won’t pretend I didn’t sleep with her. I won’t pretend I didn’t care about her - she was really fucking vulnerable, and she needed someone who cared, and I needed someone to care about me too -”

He realizes as he’s speaking that what he said was fucked up, and he scrambles for damage control. “I know you care, Eliza, I know you love me, it was my fault, it wasn’t you. You didn’t do anything wrong. This isn’t your fault. I’m just really needy, you know that - I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but nothing is ever enough.”

He reaches out then, putting his hand on her shoulder, and Eliza shrugs it off. She doesn’t even look at him. She reacts the way she would react to an insect landing on her; there’s no acknowledgement, there’s no recognition in it, just a minor gesture of impersonal disgust as the offending appendage is removed.

“I made a terrible mistake, but it doesn’t mean I love you any less. I could never love you any less. I love you so much, Eliza, and I’m so, so sorry I hurt you.”

Alexander wonders just how long she can sit there like that. She doesn’t move; she sits staring straight ahead, her eyes fixed on some point out the window, unmoving, unrelenting. She blinks, she breathes, she sits. Every so often she swallows, but that’s the extent of her reaction to anything he says.

“There were allegations of embezzling - so I thought I should just come clean and be honest, and that way there wasn’t any way they could make any legal accusations. I mean, except for adultery, technically, but that isn’t enforced here - I guess they could come after me for that, but the worst thing they can do is have me fined, and you’d have to be the one pressing charges.”

He sees the barest hint of emotion in her face, the ghost of a raised eyebrow, and then it’s gone. He kneels on the carpet by her feet and lays his forehead against her thigh, and she shrugs him off again, moving just enough that he knows he’s not welcome, and returning to her perfect posture. She doesn’t even look down.

“And I know you wouldn’t, Eliza. Eliza, please - I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, I shouldn’t have slept with her, I should have talked to you, I know I should have. I should have been better, I should have been stronger for you - I’m so weak, Eliza, please. Please -”

He isn’t sure what he’s begging for. He fumbles for words, fights to pull them out of the air and arrange them in a way that makes this right. He remembers how effortless it was when they met. He remembers the way words rolled off his tongue, words that made her smile, that made her laugh, that made her his.

“Eliza, please talk to me. Please, I know you can hear me. I’m so sorry - please just tell me what to do, tell me how to fix this.”

A shudder goes through her at that, and Alexander sees a single tear roll down her cheek. She scrubs it angrily away and returns to her position. The hand she raised lands on the stack of papers - the children’s birth certificates, their marriage certificate, and the written copy of Alexander’s wedding vows. She flicks them away and the neat pile topples off the desk and to the carpet, where Eliza pointedly ignores it.

“Eliza,” Alexander says. “Eliza, please. Just talk to me, we can fix this. There isn’t anything we can’t do together.”

“Stop talking to me,” she says. Her voice is flat. Alexander clings to those words, the first sign that she hears him, and he reaches out to touch her knee. Eliza pushes his hand away. “Stop touching me.”

Alexander aches but he obeys. He pulls his hands back and rocks on his knees, penitent and pining, all raw, exposed edges. “Eliza, I’m not giving up,” he says.

She stands then, collecting her laptop and walking towards the door.

“Eliza, please -”

“I’m giving up, Alexander,” she tells him, her voice cold. She deigns to look at him as she reaches the door, standing tall, her chin raised as she looks down at him. “I hope this destroys you.”

She leaves him there, kneeling on the floor beside her empty chair, and closes the door behind her.

**Author's Note:**

> whoops my hands slipped
> 
> chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


End file.
